Autism Cases on the Rise

Autism appears to be skyrocketing. The latest estimate, as many as one in 150 children on the autism spectrum. Groups are advocating more money for research. They claim that autism is the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States. The American Academy of Pediatrics is stressing the improtance of screening every child twice by the age of 2 for autism.

In the 1990's the autism umbrella expanded and is now known as autism spectrum disorders. Included in the psectrum is Asperger's syndrom and PDD-NOS or Pervasive Develoopmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.

Parent's perception of autism and austim services provided by schools has changed. Doctors for many years believed autism was the cause of being raised by a cold, unloving mother. This theory has since been discredited but remains difficult to change social perceptions. In the 1980's parents were often more comfortable with a diagnosis of mental retardation than autism. This has now changed and parents are more likely to be comfortable with a diagnosis of autism over mental retardation.

In 1990 the word autism as a disability category was added to the current categories. Before this was added autism was under other disabling conditions such as mental retardation or behavior disorders. The U.S. Department of Education data shows the number of students with autism rose from 42,500 in 1997 to nearly 225,000 in 2006. The number of students labeled as mentally retarded declined from about 603,000 to about 523,000.

There are many ideas as to why this increase is happening. Some believe environmental factors ranging from preservatives in vaccines to contaminates in food or water. Another theory is that autism is on the rise and the reasons are complex. Labeling and diagnosing play a role as do genetics but many believe the increase surpasses any of those explanations. Much of the money for research has concentrated on genetics research but this is recently being changed so as much as 50% of this money will be used to research possible environmental triggers.